Chapter Text
In his later years, Nat always considered it a life-changing cough. Nicolo had been gone for a week, so terror at irritating the volatile man was no longer a deterrent. Nat was free to hack and wheeze away, trying to relieve the perpetual tickle that only vanished for moments at a time.
Perhaps Nicolo had been right to bellow at him. Allowing his cough free reign seemed to set off a non-stop eruption that gripped him like some invisible boa constrictor, sucking his breath clean out of his body.
Sometimes it even made him gag.
It was during one such attack that Nat heard the voice.
‘Hello, is everything alright down there?’
Nat smothered his mouth with the bottom of his ragged shirt while his shoulders heaved. Uh oh. Now he’d done it. Both his father and Nicolo always cautioned that if they weren’t as sneaky as mice, they would be ordered to move on. This might be one of the stern policemen on his beat.
Father used to grumble, ‘We’re forced to be fugitives to stay alive,’ and then he died anyway. If Nat was denied the shelter of this damp cellar in an abandoned shop, he might die too. Another cough struggled to burst out, with a sound like a sputtering gas jet.
Footsteps clattered down the uneven stairs. Nat shrank back against the wall, but not before he saw a pair of fine leather brogues with fancy perforations etched into their sides, hardly the footwear of a street cop.
The gentleman who descended was dressed like the men Father scornfully referred to as swells, with a silk vest, flared tailcoats and a top hat.
‘Hello son.’ He stretched a cautious hand. ‘Surely you don’t live down here.’
It was no use to stay quiet. ‘I’ll go away.’ Nat’s head reeled as he scrambled to his feet.
‘No, wait. Please! Where will you go? Who do you live with?’
Nat gulped. ‘A man named Nicolo.’
This man studied him, forehead creased. ‘Is Nicolo your father.’
‘No sir.’ Nat always spoke politely to people he played the fiddle for. Hopefully courtesy would work on this man too. ‘My father’s business partner.’
‘Where is your family?’
Nat had no answer. Father died last month. If he told the truth, the man might insist on dragging him to an orphanage.
‘What’s your name, lad?’
‘Nat. Nat Blake.’ He chewed his lip, sensing he’d have been wiser to invent an alias. On the spur of the moment, he hadn’t the foresight.
‘Is Nat short for Nathan?’
‘Nathaniel.’ Drats, even now he could’ve fudged a bit.
‘Well Nathaniel… Nat, I don’t think your cough thrives in this cellar.’ The stranger turned his head to survey the smeared, moldy tiles, rotting floorboards and slimy puddles where the floor level sagged. ‘Or rather, it most certainly does, but you don’t.’
Nat hung his head. ‘I’ll try not to cough.’ Wheezing the words set off another bout.
‘When will your father or…er, Nicolo be back?’
Nat’s heart skittered, lest this man insist on waiting. ‘Not for a long time.’
‘Does a long time mean never?’
Something in the gent’s tone told Nat he’d been found out. He read the type of skepticism in the man’s expression he’d come to recognize from adults. From now on it didn’t matter what he uttered; even the truth would be regarded with suspicion.
‘Please don’t take me to an orphanage, sir. I’m not as young as I look. I’m twelve years old. I’ll find work.’
‘Easy, Nat. Who said anything about an orphanage? What line of work are you in?’
How Nat wished he’d just go away.
‘You said you’ll find work,’ the fellow persisted.
‘Street performing. I play violin.’
The newcomer raised his eyebrows and peered once again around the dripping cellar. ‘I don’t see a violin here.’
‘Nicolo took it away.’ That was the cold, stark truth.
‘That sounds rather final.’
Nat chewed his lip.
‘So if I was to bring a violin to you, would you be able to play it?’
‘Yes sir.’
The man strode across the damp cellar floor, scratching his head. ‘I’m rather fond of music myself. Rest assured, nobody said anything about an orphanage, Nat. But what if I suggested another refuge for you? A wonderful place with a blooming garden, cookies baking around the clock, and a caring couple who love looking after boys more than anything else in the world.’
‘Where is that place, sir?’ Nat began another round of coughing.
‘Not all that far from here.’ The man tugged a watch on a chain from his waistcoat pocket and gazed at its shiny face. ‘But alas, too far for me to take you now. Hmm, rest assured, I’ll find a way.’
‘Would they even have me, sir?’
‘I believe we have nothing to lose by trying. Although I can’t take you right now, I hate to leave you here. But you’re twelve years old, as you say. If I give you omnibus fare and set you on the right vehicle, I’m certain you’ll find your own way there.’
Hope infused Nat like dawning sunlight. If I don’t like the look of the place, I can scoot.
‘But what if they don’t let me in?’ He’d been shooed away from many appealing looking doors, either with Father and Nicolo or alone.
The man snapped open his leather satchel and withdrew a pencil and sheet of paper. ‘No fear of that, when you show them the letter I’m about to write. Then they’ll know as much as I do, and I’m sure they’ll welcome you inside.’ A smile tilted the corners of his jovial mouth. ‘How do you think you’ll assimilate among twelve other boys? I believe that’s the current grand total.’ He counted on his ringed fingers. ‘Yes, including their own, you’ll be number thirteen. A baker’s dozen.’
Nat suddenly fancied himself living smack in the center of a magical street pantomime, like those he’d seen other street entertainers perform, once he and his father played.
‘Why are you doing this for me, sir?’ There was a chance the kind gentleman was a crook or a charlatan with sinister intentions.
The man sighed. ‘When I was a boy I sometimes dreamed of being able to save the whole world. I’ve come to learn that the world is too big and too gnarly for anyone to save in its entirety. But if we can change the world for one person at a time, then we’re doing our part.’
Nat started coughing again. He didn’t try to smother it this time. The danger of discovery was past.
But the stranger clicked his tongue and shook his head. ‘My friend Jo… Mrs Bhaer, will soon dose you up and help get rid of that. It’s technically a school, my lad, but don’t worry. Professor Bhaer makes the lessons easy to swallow and plenty of fun.’
Nat clutched the precious piece of paper that was given him. ‘Who shall I say sent me, sir?’
‘Oh, I can’t believe I didn’t tell you my name, Nat, since you so kindly told me yours. I’m Mr Laurence.’
Nat nodded soberly.
‘I haven’t sealed the letter. You can read it aboard the omnibus, if you like. To prove to yourself that I’m aboveboard.’
‘Thank you, sir… Mr Laurence.’ Nat chewed his lip, waiting out the wave of dismay that washed over him, for he could not read. That was not something he could bluff. It might prove to be the stumbling block that caused the gentleman’s friends to turn him away.
‘The station is in the same direction I’m heading. We’ll go at your pace.’
Nat nodded and trotted along beside Mr Laurence. He watched out for his friend Dan, the newspaper boy. Dan had been kind to him too, having given him a stale loaf of bread just days ago, but perhaps he’d never see him again.
Would Dan ever pause to wonder what happened to him, if he simply disappeared?
* * *
When Laurie crested the marble steps of his own home, he was delighted to find that Amy had company. Meg and John sat sipping tea in the parlor, and they’d brought baby Josie, who faced his own darling Bess across a pile of rag dolls. The girls appeared to be keeping each other good company. Bess, being slightly older, had the advantage of speech, but Josie drowned her out in sheer volume. Yet babyhood was recent enough for his sweet daughter that she still seemed conversant in infant babble, her native tongue.
Laurie scooped up each baby girl and pressed hearty kisses on their soft cheeks before settling onto the velvet davenport beside his wife.
‘Hello, good people. I’ve done something today that will either delight Fritz and Jo or make them appalled with me.’
Amy’s eyes widened. ‘But you were only going to a meeting of the pavement committee at the town hall.’
‘Yes, but that’s not my big news. It’s something that happened on the way to the town hall from the train station. Some of the most momentous events take place in the snap of the fingers, don’t they.’
Sitting across from him, Meg’s brows puckered. ‘Oh dear, I sense we should be anxious. What impulsive thing have you done now, Laurie?’
‘And why does it concern Fritz and Jo?’ Amy asked.
So he told them all about his encounter with the homeless boy. At the end of his story, Laurie heaved a sigh. ‘I hope they won’t think I’ve overstepped the mark this time. This is different from those other occasions when I found new boys for their school. I assured poor little Dick Brown’s parents that he’d thrive in a gentle environment, and same with the Pettingills’ lad. Not sure with this boy.’
‘Young Adolphus’ stutter has markedly improved,’ John remarked.
‘I’ve noticed the same! Isn’t that a blessing. But the lad I found today is like no prospective student I’ve ever sent their way before. To call him a clean slate is an understatement, but it sounds better than street waif. For a start, he has no family or friends to support him whatsoever. I wish that worthless fellow - Nicolo, he called him - had turned up so I could give him a piece of my mind! What sort of hard-hearted bounder abandons a child!’ Laurie hunched forward to slosh tea into a cup. ‘But then again, if he did show his face, maybe he wouldn’t need to hear my home truths.’
‘Of course we have no idea of the desperation of being homeless, but it seems to me his most callous action was to take away the only possible means the lad might have had to support himself,’ John said.
‘Absolutely!’
‘That poor young boy,’ Amy sympathized. ‘One wonders how many children like him we pass on the streets, little guessing the quiet desperation behind their faces.’
‘I’m sure it showed plainly on his,’ Laurie said. ‘At any rate, I decided I couldn’t rest if I didn’t try to help him. If Jo and Fritz have no room for him, they can always send him back to the streets to try to earn a crust as he was going to do anyway, so he’ll be no worse off than he already was.’
‘You know you’re talking nonsense now,’ Meg chided him. ‘There is no way they’ll turn him away when he knocks at their door. They’ll make space for him. You know that perfectly well.’
Laurie grinned sheepishly. ‘You’re onto me, sister Meg. That is what I’m counting on. You should’ve seen his wistful sweetness. He struck me like the embodiment of Oliver Twist. Mark my words, that won’t escape Jo either, with her passion for Dickens. I just hope she and Fritz don’t think too harshly of me.’
‘Whether or not they’re put out, it sounds to me like you’ve done the only thing you possibly could,’ John said in his quiet way.
Laurie blinked at him. ‘Really?’
John nodded. ‘In the words of the late Stephen Grellet, “I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness I can show to any creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”’
Silence followed the stirring words, broken only by the treble piping of the babes’ babble.
‘Hear hear!’ Laurie blurted at last.
Amy leaned across to stroke Bess’ wealth of flaxen curls, a carbon copy of her own. ‘If your Nat does get to live at Plumfield, it may be the making of him. You never know, he may be the greatest success of all, for he’ll have the most to be grateful for.’
Laurie squeezed her hand. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised at all if you’re right, my love. I wonder how good a violinist the lad really is. I’m quite interested to find out. When all is said and done, any world in which the good John here and me were destined to become brothers-in-law is a world full of wondrous surprises.’
John Brooke simply winked at him. ‘Never a truer word was spoken.’